The Tourism Industry Association of Canada has shortlisted Niagara Falls Tourism as a finalist in the 2017 Canadian Tourism Awards.

This acknowledgement comes after the success of its summer 2016 #ExploreNiagara social media campaign.

The awards are presented annually by the association and the Toronto Star to recognize success, leadership and innovation in Canada’s tourism industry.

“Niagara Falls Tourism is thrilled to be recognized for a campaign that excelled largely because of its spotlight on our amazing members, who work hard every day to enrich Niagara Falls as a world-class destination,” said Jon Jackson, executive director of Niagara Falls Tourism.

I tried to do it all — the mazes and minigolf and midway and magic. I rode on a zip line, a ferris wheel, a cable car and a helicopter. I lunched at a rotating restaurant, looking down at tumbling tumultuous water, then out at the distant towers of downtown Toronto. I pet a parrot. I played “Hercules,” the world’s largest pinball machine. I stared into the waxy eyes of Hollywood heroes and my own long face in funhouse mirrors. I lost five dollars to a one-cent slot machine called “Treasure Tempest.” I even ate a beavertail. I saw illuminations and fireworks. I got soaked on the Hornblower, and I soaked in my retro hotel room’s heart-shaped Jacuzzi. For a very fleeting moment, I was actually spooked in a haunted house. Then, on a hike deep in the Niagara Gorge, I felt awe.

Welcome to Niagara Falls, Ont. — the most Instagrammed place in Canada, home of the most voluminous waterfall in North America and (still unofficially) the Honeymoon Capital of the World.

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I get Google Alerts for things that pertain to Niagara Falls. Neither of these stories are particularly tourism-related, but were still interesting, so I figured I’d share them…

Niagara Gazette – A daughter’s journey: Minnesota woman’s trek to Niagara Falls turns up gift of family she never knew

Pam Edwards, a native of Grand Rapids, Minnesota, found answers she was seeking about her dead father when a friend used Ancestry.com to help her find uncles and extended family in the Niagara Region.

Toronto Star – What I learned on my long, lovely limp along the Trans Canada Trail

I walked the paved path through Queenston Heights along the edge of the gorge that drops to the frothing Niagara River. On this side was the Canada that Brock and his troops helped preserve; on the other was our leviathan neighbour.

The thunder of the waterfall roared in his bones, but Will Gadd kept climbing.

Moments later, along with Sarah Hueniken, who followed him up, Gadd completed the first-ever ice climb of Niagara Falls, a feat that earned the champion climbers praise and attention from around the world.

“This is absolutely the highlight of my career to date … This is history from a straight-up climbers’ perspective,” Gadd, 47, told the Star in a phone interview Friday, three days after the 46-metre climb up the frozen spray on the east side of the fabled Horseshoe Falls.

“It is the most well-known and wildest and largest (by volume of water) waterfall in the world. As an ice climber, it doesn’t really get any bigger than that, you know? I’m pretty psyched on that one.”

Even if you don’t care about beluga whales or how animals are treated in captivity, you may still be interested in what’s happening at Marineland. In this age of widespread protest — from the Occupy Movement to the Québec student protests to the Arab Spring — Marineland reminds us that it is not just governments that may seek to silence their critics.

Marineland, a marine mammal park in Niagara Falls, Ontario, was the subject of an investigative series by the Toronto Star last year. The series was based in part on allegations by former employees, of abuse and mistreatment of animals. Marineland has denied and responded to the allegations, and is suing the Star as well as several of the former employees. Marineland has also set its sights on protesters and activists who demonstrate outside the park — launching lawsuits against at least two protestors — and has gone to Ontario courts for injunctions to order that protestors refrain from certain activities.

Ask foreigners what they think about when Canada is mentioned, and the answer is likely to be Niagara Falls. It’s the image that most defines us, for better or for worse, and no matter how inaccurately.